


A Kind of Meditation

by PeroxidePirate



Category: Emelan - Pierce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:10:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeroxidePirate/pseuds/PeroxidePirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months after <i>Coldfire,</i> Olennika teaches Jory a new kind of meditation while Heluda is on vacation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kind of Meditation

It was early summer in Kugisko, but well before dawn, the air was cool. Jory gritted her teeth and walked faster. It was no use wearing a coat -- she wouldn't need it once her workday began, and it would just be one more thing to forget when she went home in the evening.

Jory's meditation teacher, Heluda Salt, had been called away. By this time the young cook mage had mastered the art of drawing her power into herself, and she was sure she could meditate on her own for a few weeks. Her teachers evidently disagreed, however. So Jory hurried through the empty streets an hour earlier than usual.

Reaching the hospital, she paused outside Olennika Potcracker's kitchen to tie a scarf over her braided hair and a large, white apron over her linen dress. She rolled her sleeves up, past the elbow: the air would be warmer inside the kitchen, and skin was easier to clean than clothing. She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, and went inside.

Olennika was already at work. Amazing, since she'd *still* been working when Jory went home the night before. The chef scooped a pile of carrots off her cutting board, dumping them into a bubbling pot of soup, and then turned to her apprentice. "Set up at that table in the corner," she ordered. "Two bags of potatoes from the cellar, a chopping board, and four buckets half-full of water."

Used to the lack of pleasantries, Jory just nodded and got to work. As she hauled the potatoes up the stairs, one bag at a time, she wondered about her marriage prospects. A cook mage would be a sought-after bride, or so they said. Would they change their minds, if she had arms like a smith?

Jory put the thought away for another time. "Olennika? What next?" she queried.

The chef set down her knife, giving the girl her full attention. "You must have a favorite knife, by this time?" Jory nodded. "Find it."

The carved wooden wall rack held close to two dozen knives, all sharpened steel with wood handles smoothed by years of use. Jory smiled. It was her sister's trade that made the handles, her first teacher's trade that made the blades -- and her own profession that reaped the benefits. The knives were all kinds: serrated blades or smooth; slim paring knives smaller than Jory's finger, vicious looking boning knives, and wide chopping blades as long as her forearm. Her favorite was one of the last type, with an ebony handle and a sharp but light blade. She found it in a second; without hesitation, she brought it to her teacher.

"A knife has both sharpness and weight," Olennika began. "The sharpness works for you. The weight can work for you, too--"

"-- if you let it," Jory interrupted. She'd heard this lesson at least a dozen times. "You cannot fight the knife. Keep it sharp, keep it clean, and it will do what you ask of it."

Olennika nodded in approval. "You've been listening," she said. "Now listen to this: I want you to chop these potatoes, and focus on the knife. Make it the seat of your power. You use the same set of motions for each potato, like this--" She demonstrated, cutting a potato into two, then four, then eight pieces, each identical. "So you don't have to think about that. Concentrate on your breathing instead. Your breathing, and your knife."

"Potato-chopping meditation," Jory wondered. Then she looked around, at the kitchen that was beginning to bustle with the day's first flurry of activity. "But how can I, with everything that's going on--"

"Remember the hospital fire? I held it back, for a while -- because I know how to concentrate, even in the midst of chaos. Mages have to learn this. So do cooks. Cook mages like us, doubly so."

Jory felt her face crinkle up in frustration. "But I'll never be able to do something like that! No one has Potcracker's power!"

"Maybe not," came the firm reply. "But if it was a hearth-fire out of control, you could stop it. If it was a common poison or a spoiled ingredient making people sick, you could find it. If you can learn to concentrate in chaos."

The girl scowled. "I'll try."

With a satisfied nod, Olennika turned away. Jory began.

She forced her irritation down. She didn't like this task. It was boring, repetitive, and seemingly endless. It was half a step up from scrubbing pots, the first cooking job given to newcomers, because it was so hard to do wrong. Jory thought she'd moved beyond potato chopping months before.

But her teacher had given her this task. The price of being taught by a legend is that you have to obey. She did her best. Her breathing fell into the pattern, without consciously counting. Her hands repeated the familiar motions: right hand holding the knife. Left hand on the vegetable being chopped, with the fingers curled under so she wouldn't cut herself. Grab a potato, five cuts, shove the pieces to one side. Repeat. When the chopping board fills up, scoop the potatoes into a bucket. Grab a potato, five cuts. She continued, for once uninterrupted by questions from the hospital staff or lessons from Olennika.

And then it happened.

Her power filled her, exactly. Every part of her was saturated with it, and not a thread escaped her skin. It wasn't a giant blaze of fire, like Daja's magic or Olennika's. It was more like the flame of an oil lamp -- but it was *hers*, and it was right for her. She _was_ the knife. She was the potato, too, and the chopping board, and her own hands. She was the flawless machinery of the task at hand. Practicing staff work with Heluda, she could find her power, feel it, and control it. But chopping potatoes, Jory *became* her magic.

She drifted, outside thought, at once outside herself and exactly certain of herself.

"Maybe this isn't so bad," she thought. And then she was back, abruptly, looking in amazement at the four full buckets of chopped potatoes in water. She blinked, glancing around the kitchen. She hadn't noticed the other workers coming in. She hadn't noticed the light change as the sun came up.

It was breakfast time. All around, cooks stirred porridge, fried eggs and ham, and brewed tea. Others filled bowls, plates, and cups, loading these onto trays which the hospital staff took to their patients. The commotion was as bad as ever.

Olennika approached, seeing Jory's wondering gaze. "Makes the job go faster, don't you think?"

Jory nodded, feeling a slight ache in her right wrist and shoulder. She absently reached for the knife. Her hand closed over the handle, and in a flash, some of the calm, centered feeling came back to her. With it was the tingle she'd come to associate with magic. She stared at her teacher. "What happened?" she demanded.

"It's _your_ knife now," Olennika said. "It's saturated with your magic, and it will get stronger every time you use it. It's the first piece of your mage kit."

Jory grinned. For a cook mage, it wasn't a bad way to start the day.


End file.
